Mandrel, mandrill, and many other words

Words are a poor person's travel. Indeed, they may also be the travel or vade mecum for more wealthy persons who because of circumstances are unable to explore the natural world, historical environment or geographical home of thousands of words that almost beg us to understand them. If we have some patience, and let them teach us, these words create pictures in our minds, or yield up stories which we haven't heard, to relieve our drudgery, refresh us, and bring us into both the deep things and fun of life.

1. The word skelp has a few meanings, but its most popular one, as a noun, is a "thin narrow plate or flat strip of iron or steel, which by twisting or welding is converted into the barrel of a gun." So, it is what you call the "raw material" of a barrel. Before running into this word, I never took the time to think that there was even a specialized word for that metal. But, there is. From 1811: "The manufacturing of iron skelps (for the making of barrels for fire-arms)..by rollers instead of by forge hammers..." Then, we can take it one step further. From 1881: "He made the barrels by twisting a scelp with bevelled edges round a mandril."

2. The final word of the last sentence is usually spelled mandrel and refers to either a miner's pick or, in this case, a "more or less cylindrical rod round which metal or other material is forged, cast, moulded, or otherwise shaped." So, the skelp is heated, and rolled around the mandrel to form the barrel of the gun. So easy when you just know the words. By the way, when I first saw mandril above, I immediately thought of the creature Mandrillus sphinx, the large West African forest baboon or mandrill. The adult of this species has a bright red-and-blue face and blue buttocks. Here is a face and rump shot of PJ, the male mandrill in the San Diego Zoo. I will be in San Diego in about a month; I look forward to spending some time visiting PJ. I am sure it is called sphinx because of its sphingine, or inscrutable, visage.

3. There seems to be some unclarity of the meaning in English of the Turkish-derived term capidgi. Well, only the Century has the word, of all the dictionaries I consulted, and it says it literally means a "doorkeeper" (qapi is a door, gate), but then it says he was an "executioner in Turkey and Persia." Indeed, a quotation from Horne's early 19th century Introduction to the Scriptures, talks about a "capidgi or executioner who is dispatched to procure a warrant for death." However, other sources available online speak of the capidgi as a sort of high-ranking messenger, a sort of "keeper of the [Sultan's] door," so to speak. Thus, the Century quotation appears to be too "specialized," even though we don't use the term anymore today. But it makes one long to understand the complexity of Ottoman Turkey... This book, for example, talks about a Westerner's warm reception by the capidgi in his house; hardly the kind of thing you would talk about if the guy was an executioner.

4,5. Let's return to the safe haven of Greek for a bit, and look at the words atimy and athrepsia. Atimy (AT eh mee) is taken directly from the Greek atimia, meaning "disgrace, loss of honor." Legally it meant the suspension of the civil rights of a person in punishment of grave offenses; outlawry. Grote used the term in his famous 19th century A History of Ancient Greece: "Lastly, Solon decreed that all those who had been condemned by the archons to atimy (civil disfranchisement) should be restored to their full privileges of citizens." We need not confine its meaning to the the ancient world, but might use it to describe any humiliation suffered by someone.

If we patiently take apart athrepsia we are also rewarded. Derived from the alpha privative and threpsis (nourishment), it means a 'profound disturbance of nutrition' or, more commonly, 'malnutrition.' Another common medical term for it is marasmus, a Greek word meaning weakening, decaying or withering. Athymy, while we are at it, means "despondency" or "dejection." The Century lists the word as athymia (a THIM ee ah). Actually, I like athymia better than melancholy or "depression" now. It suggests that you have lost your courage, spirit, or even your breath (thumos).

I just have to notice one other word on the same Century page before returning... Atlantes have nothing to do with the ocean and everything to do with the heroic figure, Atlas, after whom they are named. Atlantes are "male caryatids," i.e., carved male figures in architecture used in place of columns to hold up an entablature. After all, Atlas spends his time holding up the world; the least the atlantes can do is to do so for temples or other public buildings.

Finishing on a Latin Roll

Two two-word Latin phrases which I will never forget are helluo librorum and nunquam satis. Actually, a diversion to obsession first will not be inappropriate. The word obsession derives from the Latin obsessio and means "the act of besieging" or "a siege." Indeed, the first usage of the word in English (1548) meant a siege. But now an obsession is "an idea, image, or influence which continually fills or troubles the mind." Thus, an obsession, really, is like a siege, and one obsessed is one besieged. We usually think of the term in an active sense, as if we are in control of the things that we "obsess" over, but in fact the thing besieges us, and we are holed up within the castle, subject to its tactics in starving us out...

Well, helluo librorum becomes clear if we realize that helluo means "eating or glutton," Thus, a helluo was, at first, a "glutton" or "gormandizer." "They eate like gurmundizing Helluohs..." The Hogna helluo (picture here) is the "wolf spider." I guess he really wolfs down his meal... Oh my..As I was looking up Hogna, to see what it means, I got distracted by the word hogmanay in the OED. It is "the name given in Scotland (and some parts of the north of England) to the last day of the year, also called "cake-day." It is so named because of the oatmeal cake or other gift which children expect when they systematically go from house to house... From 1825 we have: "The poor children in Newcastle, in expectation of their hogmena, go about from house to house knocking at the doors, singing their carols, and saying, 'Please will you give us wor hogmena." As you see, however, it is anyone's guess how to spell this, even though a child in Scotland 200 years ago would have known the word.

So, let's get back to helluo librorum, which is where we began this paragraph. Such a person "devours books." It was first used in English in 1635: "One of these brothers was called Comestor.., as it were booke-eater, because he was such a Helluo librorum, a devourer of books." But a later quotation doesn't equate such a person with a scholar; "He was of Opinion too that a man might easily read too much: And he considered the Helluo Librorum and the True Scholar as two very different Characters." Well, let's not debate the issue--I just have to get back reading! Oops, no time for nunquam satis today..

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